How can I determine the "correct" number of steps in a questionnaire where branching is used?
- by Mike Kingscott
I have a potential maths / formula / algorithm question which I would like help on.
I've written a questionnaire application in ASP.Net that takes people through a series of pages. I've introduced conditional processing, or branching, so that some pages can be skipped dependent on an answer, e.g. if you're over a certain age, you will skip the page that has Teen Music Choice and go straight to the Golden Oldies page.
I wish to display how far along the questionnaire someone is (as a percentage). Let's say I have 10 pages to go through and my first answer takes me straight to page 9. Technically, I'm now 90% of the way through the questionnaire, but the user can think of themselves as being on page 2 of 3: the start page (with the branching question), page 9, then the end page (page 10).
How can I show that I'm on 66% and not 90% when I'm on page 9 of 10?
For further information, each Page can have a number of questions on that can have one or more conditions on them that will send the user to another page. By default, the next page will be the next one in the collection, but that can be over-ridden (e.g. entire sets of pages can be skipped).
Any thoughts? :-s